ASUS implemented an interesting design with its high-end P7P55D Premium motherboard, that makes use of a PLX PEX8613 3-port/12-lane PCI-E 2.0 bridge chip across its PCI-E 1.1 x4 from the PCH to drive the Marvell 88SE9123 2-port SATA 6 Gbps controller to its full-potential. Apparently the company plans to provide SATA 6 Gbps support using essentially the same design, for all its Intel P55 series motherboards by means of an optional addon card. Much larger than the SATA 6 Gbps card from ASRock, the card from ASUS uses the same basic design that involves PLX PEX8613 as a PCI-E x4 device. The card uses the same SATA 6 Gbps controller to provide 2 internal SATA ports. From the looks of it, the card has placeholders for two controllers, with the second (absent) NEC µPD720200 controller providing USB 3.0 ports. Perhaps a future revision makes use of it. Planned to be offered as an optional accessory, this card could make for a premium over the base models.

sad that sata III = will never be on HDD but only SSD : i think HDD can still get a few improvement but HRD will defeat HDD but HRD aren't know at all when they release but they said it would be cheaper cost then SSD By Twice and have from 80GB-2TB

Mechanical drives are barely even maxing out SATA 1.5GB/s, except for the useless Burst speeds, so why would be be sad if they never used SATA III?

Even still, they are going to released mechanical drives using SATA III, we'll probably even see Optical drives using it...:shadedshu

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Why is it bad if we see SATA III HDD/ODD? Things are still backwards compatible, just plug a SATA I/II/III drive to a SATA plug and it works.
Sure SATA III doesn't bring anything new, SATA II at least brought us NCQ that actually speeds things up with ACHI, even if we aren't maxing out any bandwiths.

Anyways this is kinda meh news, as when there is actually a need for SATA III, most will have a motherboard with it already in (and rest will have SATA II and the have plenty speed too). I don't know if I disagreed or agreed with newtekie1 smilie in the end

Because on those devices it would be a pointless standards upgrade, that the consumer has to pay extra for. While sticking with SATA II would mean the manufacturers wouldn't need to spend money retooling and redesigning products to replace the SATA II products giving zero benefit in the end other than being able to market SATA III. And all that costs gets passed on to the consumer.

Because on those devices it would be a pointless standards upgrade, that the consumer has to pay extra for. While sticking with SATA II would mean the manufacturers wouldn't need to spend money retooling and redesigning products to replace the SATA II products giving zero benefit in the end other than being able to market SATA III. And all that costs gets passed on to the consumer.

I know - not very useful to the lot of you, but there are markets and situations where SATA III is desired. If you're not one of "them" then you will benefit later from a standard that will be:

- Throughly tested by "them".
- Implemented in next gen south bridges.
- Devices priced in-line with current prices.

I've been around for older transfer modes -> ATA33 -> ATA66 -> ATA100 -> ATA133, SATA 1.5 -> SATA 3.0 and now SATA 6.0. So far this is how it's always gone. Obviously not everyone needed to upgrade at the time those standards were introduced -- if so we'd probably be a couple standards back and everyone here at TPU would be complaining. The techo plebes at lesser forums would be wondering what all the fuss is about, 100MB/s is enough for them (and they didn't need the features that SATA has brought).

ODD: Might be moot, as I don't know of any optical SATA II/III devices.

Unlike SCSI or IDE/ATA where keeping opticals (and tape, portable disc, etc) up to date with the interface that the hard drive uses is a plus, there isn't a downside (that I'm aware of) when you use a slower device on a faster SATA controller.

Does sata III provide power? Would be nice for one of those compact SSDs that plug directly into the sata port to be able to draw power from it too; eliminate the need for that extra cable (and thus defeating the point of a plug-in SSD?)

I have an Asus P5B-D MB w/ 1237 bios. With this MB is it worth it for me to get the Intel 80gig SSD? (will I get all the speed this SSD is capable of on this MB?) And if not, is there an add-in card I could get to help?